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    I'm the Vampire, That's Why
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    I'm the Vampire, That's Why
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    I'm the Vampire, That's Why
    Ebook328 pages4 hours

    I'm the Vampire, That's Why

    By Michele Bardsley

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Sink your teeth into the first novel in New York Times bestselling author Michele Bardsley's Broken Heart series.

    Broken Heart is the city with the highest rate of divorce and highest percentage of single parents in Oklahoma. And I, Jessica Matthews, have been a member of that club ever since my husband dumped me for his twenty-something secretary and then had the gall to die in a car accident.

    Now I’m not just a single mother trying to make ends meet in this crazy world...I’m also a vampire. One minute I was taking out the garbage; the next I awoke sucking on the thigh of superhot vampire Patrick O’Halloran, who’d generously offered his femoral artery to save me.

    But though my stretch marks have disappeared and my vision has improved, I can’t rest until the thing that did this to me is caught. My kids’ future is at stake—figuratively and literally. As is my sex life. Although I wouldn’t mind finding myself attached to Patrick’s juicy thigh again, I learned that once a vampire does the dirty deed, it hitches her to the object of her affection for at least one hundred years. I just don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of commitment...
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Group
    Release dateSep 5, 2006
    ISBN9781101647585
    Unavailable
    I'm the Vampire, That's Why
    Author

    Michele Bardsley

    Michele Bardsley is a national bestselling author of paranormal, romance, and mystery fiction. She lives in Texas with her husband (The Viking), four dogs, two cats, and nine finches. She loves “Supernatural,” chocolate, crocheting hats, and spending time with her husband.

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    Reviews for I'm the Vampire, That's Why

    3.5/5

    209 ratings23 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Loved it. Was very, very entertaining, as long as you switch your brain off. So much fun, can't wait to read the rest of the books.
    • 3/5
      Another unwilling vampire story, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Am slowly reading the sequels.
    • 3/5
      Fun light read!
    • 5/5
      i'm not much in to vampire books but this was a good book
    • 3/5
      A single parent protagonist? And of under-18s too. Something different -Whoo-hoo!

      The humour for me was hit-and-miss (Woobies? Seriously?) but what really intrigued me was Jessica's relationship with her dead husband, Rich and his mistress, Charlene and their baby, little Richie. The emotional side of things. You can't help feeling for Jess while she's trying to figure out how to deal the mistress of her dead husband now permanently entrenched in her life as another new vampire, sharing the same master (jealousy but that's not irrational -she steals one man, she might steal another) as well as adjusting to the undead lifestyle and holding off the enemy Wraiths. What Charlene reveals about Rich changes the way Jess feels about him but ultimately the outcome of her marriage would've been the same.

      Aside from the constant worry for their health and safetly and considering Jess is a widowed single mother, we don't see too much of the children. I know the focus is on the couple coming together being romance and all but I was desperate to know how they felt about the werewolves and vampires in their lives beyond the obvious "Coooool!"

      I liked the origin stories behind the first vampire and The Rings as well as the concept of claiming and mating for 100 years. It cuts out the possibility of straying but could leave you in a miserable situation. Overall, this was an easy, fast and fun read.
    • 4/5
      I'm the Vampire, That's Why (Broken Heart, Oklahoma, Book 1) Well, I don't know about you, but this book came at just the right time for me, and I was very pleased with it.
      It was a light, fast read, with laugh out-loud moments, a gorgeous, yummy man, a strong and funny woman, lovable supporting characters, a world that was interesting and well explained, and a very nice and tiara filled ending.
      I loved the writing style, and I couldn't put the book down once I started. I would most definitely be reading more of this series and Michele Bardsley works :)
    • 3/5
      No wonder the quote on the cover is from MaryJanice Davidson. If you taken Queen Betsy and turn her into a brunette housewife and give Sinclair an Irish lilt, you have this book.
    • 1/5
      Go ahead and add I'm the Vampire, That's Why to the growing list of lackluster paranormals that are clogging up bookshelves around the nation. This book is like vampire paranormal goulash - Bardsley just threw plot elements from other vampire series into the pot, and waited to see what would happen.

      Bardsley gallups through the setup, where we learn about her alternate reality and her main characters. She's so busy getting to the good stuff she devotes no more than a paragraph to any of the following things: (1) The narrator finding out that vampires exist (2) The narrator finding out that she's dead (3) The narrator finding out that she's a vampire (4) The narrator coming to grips with the drinking of blood. The sum total of the narrator's reaction to these things is: Pretty crazy, huh?

      Seriously, I don't care about the rules of her alternate reality if I'm not discovering it with the narrator, feeling it with the narrator, really getting involved in the STORY.

      Her vampires are basically just superheroes with fangs. They have a laundry list of supernatural powers, they wake up from their Turning extra-gorgeous, and they don't seem to have any kind of noticeable personality change from their earlier, human selves - bloodlust is mild, no hunting instincts. So vampires either volunteer blood to one another, or else they feed off of donor humans, and it's all very civilized.

      Jessica's romance with Patrick would be hot...if Bardsley hadn't pretty much spoiled it from the beginning. The reader discovers almost on the first page that Jessica is wearing a very special, very ancient ring and it has been prophesied for thousands of years that whoever next wore this ring is Patrick's soul-mate. Patrick believes in this prophesy, so he's instantly devoted to Jessica; and he's a really (almost tiresomely) nice guy. So there isn't a whole lot of tension to the romance; sure, it makes sense that Jessica needs a few days to think it over, and it sucks that they can't have sex while she thinks; and yes, she ought to wonder how her kids fit into the equation, but there's no real threat to their union, just a frustrating deferral.

      What else? Too many characters, introduced too quickly, without enough personality. Over the top evil villains. Jessica pretty much ignores her kids throughout the novel (it's always, "Well, there goes another night without seeing my kids...good thing I know they'r safe!"), characters say and do things at inappropriate times and places (example: Evil Ex Girlfriend interrupts a war room powwow to tell Patrick, out of the blue, "We were good before, we could be again" - don't even Evil Ex Girlfriends have a sense of timing?). A real cop-out at the ending.

      Bloodless? Absolutely.
    • 4/5
      Single Mom with betrayal issues from her ex-huband, now dead, Gets bitten and turns into a vamp. She is sponsored by an hunky alpha male that curls our toes as we read of him. Funny snarky characters fill this fast paced story. A great beach read, not too serious.
    • 5/5
      What is the book about? Jessica Matthews, mother of two kids Bryan, 14 and Jenny, 5 has been attacked when taking out the trash. She wakes up sucking on a thigh of an attractive four hundred thousand year old vampire who is naked and chained to a wall. Instantly there is something about Patrick that attracts her.Jessica has been changed into a vampire by a crazed vampire named Lorcan, the brother of Patrick.What did I think of the book?Each of Michele's books are about a different single parent who has been turned into a vampire by Lorcan's hands. Don't worry he's not evil, he was just really sick. This book is the first of the Broken Heart series, and I guarantee you'll be hooked as soon as you open the book. There's violence, thrill, and humor which all wraps up into a great sexy paranormal read.
    • 3/5
      There was so much that I could've liked about this book, but somehow it just missed the mark as everything just felt a little too contrived. Patrick is just too good to be true, even in fiction, while the whole set up felt like one massive cliché. Not sure that I'll be hurrying to read other books in the series.
    • 1/5
      I'm a paranormal junkie, it doesn't take much to entertain me - but I have to say I didn't care for this book at all. I was really dissapointed, because this seems to have such a great rating!I stopped reading it half-way through (which I nearly NEVER do), because I just couldn't get into the story.
    • 1/5
      I'm a paranormal junkie, it doesn't take much to entertain me - but I have to say I didn't care for this book at all. I was really dissapointed, because this seems to have such a great rating!I stopped reading it half-way through (which I nearly NEVER do), because I just couldn't get into the story.
    • 3/5
      Just fun mind candy, a combination of romance (well sex at least), and a bit of action with a mouthy main character. Just what i needed.
    • 4/5
      Highly entertaining. A fast light read.
    • 3/5
      Broken Heart is the heart break capital, where the vampires have decided to rebuild their society. Jessica Matthew's is a resident and a newly turned vampire. She is also the soul-mate of Patrick. One of the oldest vampires. Jessica and Patrick are soul mates but can Jessica handle being mated to Patrick for 100 years if they succumb to their lustful desires?
    • 4/5
      Light story about a housewife who becomes a vampire.When Jessica Matthews is attacked and nearly killed she's turned into a vampire by the sexy Patrick O'Halloran she finds herself living a different life. The fact that pretty much the whole town ends up living a vampiric life makes this interesting. When she discovers that if she has sex with a vampire they're partners for 100 years she has a lot of choices to make.It's light vampire romance lit. It's nothing earthshaking but I did enjoy the read.
    • 5/5
      Hilarious, sexy, easy, read. Makes u wish u were the main character! Author does a great job mixing sexiness, humor, and eroticism. If you love vampire fiction/romance, you will LOVE this book!
    • 2/5
      This book wasn't very good. I wanted to like it and was so excited to find it at my local used bookstore. The concept was fresh and fun. A vampire accidentally turns a bunch of housewives (and one househusband) into vampires. The vampire group (policticians kinda) buy out the rest of the dying town and come up with a plan to run it specifically to suit vampires and other supernatural creatures. The whole first half of the book seemed very disjointed. I had a hard time keeping up with what was going around because I felt like the author kept changing ideas when the first points hadn't been completed. Often I had to go back and re-read something to see what I missed. The vampire hero and the newly turned housewife vampire fell in love almost instantaneously and their 'obstacle' to happy ever after felt forced. The best part of this book involved Jessica, our heroine, dealing with the betrayal of her now deceased husband and coming to terms with his mistress and her husband's 'love' child. That story actually felt real and Jessica's emotions worked positively here. There were some cute scenes but this book was also overly heavy on sexual descriptions. There was so much sex it was boring. Usually I go on and on about how I enjoy a story's secondary characters, but these were one deminsional and dull. I have the next two books already and I will read them, but here is to hoping they aren't all like this. Side note: I have a friend who devours books like I do, and she only made it to page 50 before she returned it to the library.
    • 2/5
      First off I should say books with a lot of romantic angst really turn me off. That said, this book had a LOT of romantic angst - strike one. A lame start and a melodramatic finish combine for another strike. I do have to give the author some credit though and say that some of the vamp/Celtic history in the middle was interesting, the paranormal town premise was interesting, and there were a few funny moments with the kids and the werewolves (and, once, an unfortunate cat). However, the highly annoying main character brings us to... strike 3 - and you're out.
    • 5/5
      What kind of book do you get when you mix the chick-lit sass of a soccer mom with the urban fantasy cool of a vampire clan? A really clever book, that's what. Jessica Matthews is like any other homemaking mom when she and ten of her fellow residents of Broken Heart, Oklahoma wake up dead. Or rather-- undead. Whoops. Jess and her friends have been accidentally noshed on by a vampire being treated for an illness spreading amongst vampire kind known as the Taint. Lucky for the PTA they couldn't catch the disease as humans and a group of parakind known as the Consortium has brought them all back to life (or unlife) as vamps. How can the PTA raise kids when they drop dead asleep every morning and don't rise until dark? And what does this mean for their sex lives? In Jessica's case this means she has to choose between her kids and the hot Irish stud who sired her. Or does it? You're just gonna have to read the book to find out. Although lacking in the darker undertones of a good urban fantasy, I'm the Vampire, That's Why is a sexy and witty novel filled with all the elements of good fluffy fiction. If you prefer your paranormal romances to be darker, angstier and more serious you might not enjoy this book. But if you like to mix it up now and again with a light-hearted and more comedic story this is a standout for the genre. I didn't fall in love with our hero and heroine so much as the outside players from the German werewolf guardians and the dreamy actor Johnny Angelo (you'll love the James Dean clone) to Jessica's typical kids and her small town friends. This is a paranormal with real heart and while lighter, fluffier reading than the heavy-weights of the genre this series is going onto my favorites shelf.
    • 4/5
      A little more crude than I would like, but an interesting story nonetheless.
    • 2/5
      I expected that there would be more domestic comedy with the vampire twist. This is what the cover and blurbs seemed to promise. The book was too much about high vampire politics. The sex scenes came too quickly, and they were too long. I kept thinking, enough already!! The Irish twist in this book was interesting, and this would have been a good background for the domestic comedy. I liked when Ruadan appeared late in the book, but it was too little too late. I would have welcomed more of the tone sounded in the daughters essay about her new family, but this was nearly the last thing in the book. I will give the sequel a chance, I guess.